


beyond the copper mind

by babygrxxt



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mention of Past Abuse, brainwashing tw, typical winter soldier trigger warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-27 05:37:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12074568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babygrxxt/pseuds/babygrxxt
Summary: Steve smiles at the Soldier – at what he saw as Bucky – and the Soldier feels uncomfortable at the familiarity of his gaze. “You know what people this side of 2000 do when they want to find themselves?”“Something weird, probably,” the Soldier responded, deadpan. “They tend to do that.”Steve grinned, wide and beautiful. “They go on a road trip, trying to find all the answers scattered across the states.”The Soldier raised an eyebrow. “Does it work?” he asked.“Want to find out?”-Steve, Bucky, Sam and Natasha go on a road trip around the country, and memories start coming back to the Soldier. He isn’t sure what they all mean.





	beyond the copper mind

It didn’t take long for Steve to realise that Bucky wasn’t going to pretend everything’s alright this time like he used to, back in the winters when Steve got so sick he saw angels dancing in the corners of his eyes, back when Bucky walked with a self satisfied smirk printed upon his features and a swaggered roll on his hips as he moved towards the dames.

It didn’t take long for Steve to realise that Bucky was different now; that just because he rescued him from the crushing waves doesn’t mean he was still the older, stronger boy who punched out Grady McDougal for so much as throwing a look in Steve’s general direction.

It didn’t take long for Steve to get used to being woken up abruptly in the middle of the night, cold metal around his throat and a knife glinting in the dimness of his bedroom. He refused the offer of Tony to put a lock on his door, because “I trust him, Stark” (more like he trusted his shield, which he slept with on his chest all the time now).

It only took a few weeks for the Soldier to read all these emotions and more from the expansiveness of his friend–mission–friend–mission’s face, and he would prefer to keep the one that appeared like love hidden for just a bit longer.

*

The funeral had been heartbreaking, and not just because she’d been a second mother to Bucky either – caring for his wounds after a fight, teaching him how to care for Steve – but also because Steve just _stood_ there the entire time, not uttering a word, not even able to say hello to those who arrived in their droves. It was Bucky who had to take over as the host, read out the eulogy Steve had written, say thank you to everyone for coming even though he wished none of them would have to be there at all. But he didn’t regret any of it, because it meant that Steve – beautiful, strong Steve – could stay silent and sombre over the gravestone, staring at the words engraved on the stone so intently they mustn’t have made sense by the end.

Bucky walked Steve back to his place – or rather, his place for the rest of the month, until the rent came in. He knew Steve wouldn’t be able to work at the ship yard with Thomas and the other lads, knew they’d just beat him to the ground and make fun of him when he was around as well as when he was absent, and Bucky didn’t think he’d be able to hold himself back from smashing their faces into a wall for long, and goddamnit he needed this job. Steve was all tiny, but he was so, so strong, stronger than Thomas Macy, that’s for sure. And in that moment, even though Bucky knew he couldn’t afford a damn penny of it, he asked Steve to move in with him.

He didn’t say ‘Well, who else is gonna look after you now?’ He didn’t say ‘Who else is gonna pay for your medicine, and hold you when you get sick?’ And he definitely didn’t say ‘I’m worried about you dying without me’ because Bucky knew one thing about fears, and that was that you should never say them out loud. Instead, he made some cocky joke about shining his shoes and taking out the garbage, though he knew Steve would actually do it if he asked – he was just that kind of guy.

“I can get by on my own, you know,” Steve said, and Bucky looked at him, a muscle in his jaw twitching. There was a word for the feeling he got around his best friend, when he truly saw through him and saw all his bravery and strength and goodness, but he couldn’t put a word on it.

“The thing is,” Bucky said, trying desperately to keep his breathing steady. “You don’t have to.”

Steve had glanced upwards, then, as if Bucky had lassoed the moon and set it down in his small hands.

 _Mission-friend-mission-friend_ told the story a bit differently, and maybe it had all been a lucid dream brought on by the liquor the Soldier found in Stark’s alcohol cabinet, but he thought he remembered something.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to though, for when he did, his heart burnt straight through him and stung so severely it reminded him of Pierce.

The Soldier didn’t want to be reminded of Pierce.

*

“I knew of a Stark,” the Soldier murmured, as the younger one – the one with more issues than the 1943 version if that was possible – tinkered away on the arm, muttering under his breath to the computer because computers understood humans, now, apparently. If he didn’t feel sick all the time, the Soldier might’ve been interested in the workings of such a contraption. “Back in the war.”

Tony chuckled, ceasing work on the arm. He leaned back on the office chair, twirling a screwdriver round his fingers.

“Probably knew him better than I did, that’s for sure,” Tony responded, and the Soldier raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t sure if he’d said something humorous or offensive, because Tony was smiling yet appeared pained at the same time. Perhaps the Soldier should’ve just stayed quiet, like how Pierce told him to. “He might’ve been a good agent – or whatever he was – but a father... It wasn’t his best role.”

The Soldier swallowed thickly, and when Tony motioned for him to do so he flexed the fingers he’d never wanted – the arm he’d never wanted. They should’ve left him down in the ravine, where he died a hero’s death – not made him into this – never should’ve made him into this.

Mission-friend-mission-friend- _Steve._

“Do you trust me, Stark?” he asked suddenly, as Tony bustled around confidently, without hesitation, at his workstation. “Honestly?”

Tony didn’t even look up. “Honestly?” he repeated. “Not as far as I could throw you, big lad.”

He couldn’t say he hadn’t expected that. “Steve-”

This time, Tony did turn around, and the Soldier could see he had been assembling the Iron Man arm around his own. They were the same now, the Soldier and Stark – but different, in so many ways. For one, he doubted Tony had used his for … for what the Soldier had.

“Steve was looking for a dead man, and instead he found you,” Tony responded. He spoke so casually, as if he wasn’t beaming repulsors at the wall of his workshop. “I don’t think you’re what he needs right now. If I’m honest – I don’t think you’ll ever be James.”

‘ _Neither do I’_ hung on the end of the Soldier’s tongue, because ‘James’ didn’t even stir any emotion in him – not unless it was Steve who said it, Steve with the sad blue eyes and the endlessly good heart and the brave character that the Soldier would never deserve, not if he lived a thousand murdering lifetimes.

“Thanks, Stark,” he settled on instead, stepping up from the bench. Pepper was hovering around the glass doors, smiling in at Tony, and the Soldier didn’t want to intrude. He made for the door.

“One last truth for the road, soldier,” Stark called out over the echoing room as the Soldier managed a cordial and strained smile for Pepper.

“Hit me with it,” he responded – a new term of the 21st Century he didn’t mind as much as the others.

“He loves you,” Tony said, and this time, the Soldier stopped dead in his tracks. “Steve. It’s as clear as day.”

“Obviously,” the Soldier-Bucky-Soldier replied, ignoring the beating of the heart in his chest, the heart that should’ve stopped ninety five years, four months, thirteen days ago – “I have the face of his best friend.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Tony replied. The Soldier bit down on his lip.

He didn’t say, _‘I know’._

*

When Bucky sees Steve walking into the bar, all broad and unwavering and exactly how he should be, he can barely stop himself from punching him straight in his stupid, crooked nose (because everything has changed but his blue blue eyes and that fucking nose). He wants to scream at him, to pound at his chest and curse him out and call him “such a bloody idiot I swear to God” because doesn’t Steve see what they’re trying to do? What they do to everyone?

Doesn’t Steve know that they’ll take him – in all his perfection and his unwavering loyalty and his beauty – and they’ll unmake him, rebuild him, create something stronger in its place; a machine that takes orders blindly and doesn’t care about morals or their own opinions?

Didn’t Steve realise that he was just _fine_ the way he was on the backstreets of Brooklyn, where he’d broken his nose and got that bump in it for some fucking stupid reason because Bucky wasn’t there to protect him? Didn’t Steve realise that they were going to ruin e _verything_ good about him, change every last inch, take him apart limb by limb until he was screaming in agony?

“Why are you staring at me?”

Steve – now sitting opposite him - broke through more walls than Bucky dared to count, and he blinked a couple times, his eyes dry. He suddenly wondered how long it was that he had been searching for the answers in Steve’s features; in his mind, it had been more years than he’d been alive.

“Sorry,” Bucky said, reverting his gaze down to the still untouched beer in front of him. “It’s still a lot to get used to.”

“I didn’t say to stop.”

Bucky must’ve looked shocked, because his best friend – his more than brother, in every conceivable way – laughed, leaning back on his seat.

Steve had already, rather impressively, finished off his beer. Bucky remembered, with vague nostalgia, how before Steve couldn’t take one sip of whisky without having to rely on Bucky to drag him home and put him to bed.

“I know what you mean, though,” Steve said, once he had finished laughing. He was doing that annoying little thing he’d picked up from his cousins back in Brooklyn, running a finger along the rim of his glass so it made a little whistle. Bucky strained not to put his hand on top of Steve’s and stop him. Touch felt like fire, now, even more than before. “It’s so _odd,_ Buck, truly. I mean, I’m having to stop myself breathing out completely because when I do the buttons pop off my shirt.”

“Really,” Bucky said, breath hitching in his chest. “That’s ... interesting.”

“It’s even weird not having to worry about the asthma, or the scarlet fever, or the high blood pressure...”

“The colds,” Bucky mumbled. He knocked back the beer in a couple of gulps, hoping that the burning in his stomach came from the alcohol and not from whatever they did to him in that place. “They were fun, weren’t they?”

“You were always so worried,” Steve laughed, eyes sparkling. He looked like he’d just came back from hanging the goddamn stars, and perhaps he had, from the way everyone was glancing over at them in the bar. Steve was a different man now – the centre of all the attention. Bucky felt something rise up in his veins. “You don’t have to do that now.”

“Aw Stevie,” Bucky said, wincing only slightly when Steve threw his arm around him at the nickname. “You know I’ll always be worrying ‘bout you, till the day I die.”

Steve made a little sudden start, and Bucky immediately moved away from him, scared that he’d done something – briefly forgetting that Steve wasn’t breakable anymore, wasn’t the plastic bag drifting through the wind or the crumpled up can on the side of the road. He was a man, now, Steve; a man and a soldier and a fighter. He was everything Bucky hadn’t wanted him to be.

“You alright?” Bucky asked, furrowing his eyebrows together in concern. Steve flashed him a weak smile and nodded his head.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied, but Bucky knew Steve’s words meant nothing. He could be shot in the fucking stomach, bleeding out his life and still proclaim he was fine and dandy. “Just the palpitations. Keep going.”

Bucky pursed his chapped lips together and considered his friend. “You’re always getting yourself into trouble, Stevie,” Bucky sighed. “Can you just do something for me?”

“Of course,” Steve responded almost immediately.

“Don’t be heroic,” Bucky said, clear and strong, and when Steve went to intervene he stopped him with a hand to the chest. “No, just listen for _once._ You’re always the kind of guy to want to save everyone – I heard about that grenade thing at boot-camp, by the way, you left that out of your letters – and it’s just – it’s _exhausting_ for me, Steve, honestly it is.”

“Buck-”

“You’re the only goddamn thing that I thought would be there for me when I got home, punk, and then you decided to go and join the army when I _specifically_ told you not to –”

“Bucky, Bucky,” Steve cut in. There was a slight frown on his forehead, and suddenly, Bucky was of the distinct impression that he had lost Steve once more; he had that look in his eyes that said he was planning bigger things, imagining the next great rescue – the great thing that didn’t include Bucky saying all he’d wanted to for years. “I’m putting a team together.”

“I know,” Bucky said, rolling his eyes. “You’ve got the most rag-tag team I’ve ever seen. You’d think you were trying to get yourself killed.”

“I was wondering if you’d come with,” Steve said, a careful smile lingering on his hesitant features. “Are you willing to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?”

 _I’ve already been there_ hangs on the end of Bucky’s tongue, but he needs to fake the charisma that came so easily to him before, and so he says, “Hell no,” instead, smirking at the brief disappointment on Steve’s face. “That little guy from Brooklyn, that was too dumb not to run away from a fight.”

_The little guy I miss so dearly._

“I’m following him.”

After that, they spent the night dancing like the old days and maybe it was a bit easier for Bucky to smile when he found out Steve still couldn’t dance for shit. It was only when Bucky returned to his bedroom that night and was staring at the empty ceiling that it registered in his mind - Steve shouldn’t have palpitations anymore.

A word hung on the end of his tongue, but he couldn’t just put a finger on it.

The Soldier woke up in cold sweat - screaming - with Steve panting below him, finger shaped bruises on his neck.

*

“’m sorry,” the Soldier mumbled under his breath the next morning, as Sam pressed an icepack into Steve’s neck, much to the Captain’s annoyance. Natasha and Sam had been staying with them for a while, now – ever since the first... incident.

The Soldier supposed he should be happy about this. He supposed it meant Steve would be safe from him. But then why did he get the sudden notion it should just be the two of them – that it had always been the two of them – it was meant to be like that?

“Don’t be,” Steve said, when really he should’ve been saying _Fuck you fuck you you keep trying to kill me fuck you._ Maybe if he swore at him the Soldier would feel less like he was going to vomit every five seconds. “It’s fine.”

“It’s really not,” the Soldier muttered, barely comprehensible, and – as it always happened when he uttered a goddamn word – all three looked around at each other significantly. Natasha was shuffling rather uncomfortably on her feet. From the way Steve spoke of her, this was uncharacteristic. Sam was mostly focused on his pancakes, but the Soldier knew – perhaps because of natural perceptiveness, maybe because of his training – that there was a gun pressing into his stomach, hanging off the hook of his belt.

Steve, however; he just smiled at the Solider – at what he probably saw as Bucky – and the Soldier felt for lack of a better word _uncomfortable_ at the familiarity of his gaze.

“You know what people this side of 2000 do when they want to find themselves?” he said, and the Soldier didn’t really want to know, but it was Steve goddamnit and he was speaking in such an orchestrated way that the Soldier knew he’d been thinking of this long before the conversation.

“Something weird, probably,” the Soldier responded, deadpan. “They tend to do that.”

Steve grinned, wide and beautiful, and so so so _good_. “They go on a road trip, trying to find all the answers scattered across the states.”

The Soldier raised an eyebrow. “Does it work?” he asked, obviously unsure. Now Natasha was smiling too, and she leaned over the breakfast table towards him, so close he could smell her rose perfume.

“Want to find out?” she asked, her lips as red as blood, and without much thought, the Soldier nodded.

*

The first one to notice how utterly miserable Bucky is was probably Steve, but he never points out things like that – another thing Bucky can’t think of the word for, but likes, he thinks. The first one to mention it is Agent Carter; too pretty, too red lipped, too strong, too utterly _Steve_ and when Bucky looks at her, he’s filled with a seething rage.

“Sergeant,” she said to him the next night after he signed away his life to the Howling Commandos - to Steve.

“Agent,” he responded, shuffling over to allow her a seat at the table, although there was plenty of room and he was the only one sitting there. His rifle sat on the ground beside him, touching against his foot; comforting in one way, because it makes him think of his father, and destroying in another, because he wanted to be the only one here and now he’s not – now Steve’s here, and he’s got someone to worry about and he thought he _got away_ from that.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying,” Agent Carter said, clear and confident and crisp, just like the man who was in love with her, “But you appear to be quite...”

“Quite,” Bucky prompted, when she paused.

“Miserable,” she finished. Bucky let out a low laugh, and then a whistle.

“You’re not one for mincing words, Agent Carter,” he said. “That’s for damn sure.”

She licked out over her lips, and some of the lipstick came away with it. She appeared untouchable to Bucky, but maybe the only reason for that was because she had rejected his advances the previous night in favour of Steve. Yes, he just wasn’t used to women not throwing themselves at him – he had never bragged much about it, but each time it happened, he got a flutter of pride in his chest.

“I wouldn’t have said a word,” she explained. “If it weren’t for Steve.”

Bucky set down his beer glass. “Steve,” he repeated.

“Yes,” Peggy said. She cleared her throat. “He’s been worried about you. I can tell. You’re the only one who knew him – properly knew him – before...”

“Before you turned him into a weapon,” Bucky couldn’t stop himself from saying, casually though, like she was just another girl with too red lips and a too bright smile. “Before you took away Steve and replaced him with Captain America.”

“Captain America is Steve,” Peggy protested, though she wavered slightly. And Bucky knew what he was doing was unfair, planting doubts in her mind with his knowledge of the boy since they were children, but it was difficult to stop once he started – had always been that way. “I think I understand now, though.”

“What do you understand?” he asked, furrowing his eyebrows together. Peggy just smiled thinly.

“Why he was so determined to rescue you,” she said. “He was willing to walk to Austria, you know, and I tried to tell him it was a suicide mission –”

“Steve never listens.”

She laughed at that, gorgeous and tinkling, and Bucky smirked over another sip of beer.

“No, he doesn’t,” Peggy grinned. “That’s one of his best qualities, perhaps.”

“What attracts you to him in the first place,” Bucky mumbled, but it was just low enough for Peggy to pretend not to hear it.

“So, Sergeant –”

“Call me Bucky. Everyone else does.”

“Okay – Bucky. I’m not here on behalf of Steve –”

Bucky already knew that. If Steve wanted to say something to him, he’d say it, and vice versa – the way it had always been.

“But I was just wondering, since he cares for you so deeply,” she inhaled sharply. “What exactly happened to you in that place that made you so –”

“If I knew, darling,” Bucky said with a twisted smile. The more she talked, the more his heart burnt holes in his chest. “I’d tell you. I’d write it down in the reports. Hell, I’d sing it from the bloody rooftops. But I don’t know.”

Peggy considered him for a moment, as if trying to decide if he was lying (he was, of course he was, but she obviously noticed that he was determined not to relive those days – weeks – months – however long he was in that place, not for anyone).

“Then – if you truly don’t remember – what is it that makes you like this?”

“How do you know I wasn’t always like this?” Bucky didn’t bother asking her to clarify what ‘this’ was. They were both too intelligent for that.

“He talked about you, you know,” Peggy said, smiling softly. “From what he said, I got the impression you were quite the man around Brooklyn.”

“Maybe,” Bucky murmured. He had never been one for getting embarrassed, but the flutter of pride he usually got around girls appeared at the thought of Steve – his Steve, his best friend Steve – talking of him in this way. “What do you want me to say?”

“May I be so bold?”

“You have been already, Agent Carter.”

“Call me Peggy.”

“Well, I don’t think we could get much bolder with each other, Peggy, not still clothed.”

Peggy doesn’t go a calm shade of pink like the girls back home would’ve. She just stared Bucky out, challenging him.

“Are you jealous of Steve, Bucky?” she asked, simple and open, just like that. Just like Steve. For a brief moment, Bucky considered it.

He supposed it had been him in the spotlight the rest of their lives, after all, and now it was all changing so rapidly within a matter of weeks. He’d always been self centred – not in a bad way, he hoped, it was just the way he was; no matter how hard he tried to erase it from his personality. So instead he just went with it.

Until he met Steve.

Now everyone was cheering for Captain America, plastering his photographs over billboards, singing his songs along the streets. The kids back at home didn’t want to be just like Sergeant Barnes – they were instead holding up bin lids with crappily painted stars on the front, acting like they were shields and war was all a big game.

“It wouldn’t be a bad thing,” Peggy said, whilst Bucky wondered if he had a bit of villain in him all along. “Jealousy is a perfectly normal reaction.”

Bucky nodded his head subconsciously, but jealousy didn’t sound like the right word for the feeling he got at the fact that everybody else saw Steve’s greatness now that he was all big and strong and an ‘ideal’ soldier, when Bucky saw it years ago.

“Soldier.”

Natasha’s voice broke through, shattering the memory. The Soldier resurfaced, breathing shallowly, an ocean forming in his chest.

She placed her hand on his arm and it felt so familiar – felt like this had happened before – and he looked up at her with wide scared eyes and tears forming in the corners of them.

_NatashaNatashaSteveNatashaandSteveNatashaSteve._

“We need to go soon,” Natasha said lowly, because Steve was bumbling around in the hall outside the apartment with Sam, sorting through the luggage, finding everyone’s passport. They were laughing, pushing each other playfully, and the Soldier felt sick. “Are you okay with that?”

The Soldier nodded his head, and then shook it, because Natasha-Black Widow-Russia-Moscow-Solider- _Natalia_ was considering him with furrowed eyebrows and a worried expression.

She sighed, and then took his head and rested it upon her chest. With the scent of her rose perfume he stopped himself from falling apart.

*

They’d been driving for a long time, or maybe it had only been a few hours – time got away from the _Soldier-Bucky-Soldier- **Bucky**_ quite frequently nowadays. Steve was behind the wheel for the first while, tapping his fingers against the plastic the way he did against his shield, against the windowpanes of his apartment, against the breakfast table as the Soldier attacked his pancakes in the morning.

 _Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap_ went Steve’s slender fingers, in rhythm with the rain hitting against the windows of the car. It was soothing more than annoying this time round, the Soldier thought, and he almost could’ve fallen asleep to the sound of Steve’s low murmurs if it wasn’t for Sam’s loud rustling of the map and declarations that, “You might be Captain America, Steve, but you sure as hell don’t know your way around it.”

Natasha was listening to earphones beside him, her knees tucked into her chest and the seatbelt digging what looked painfully into her torso. She was strong, the Soldier could tell, and as she listened to the music (it sounded more like screaming to the Soldier, but then he supposed everything did now) she bobbed her head lightly, smirking at Sam and Steve’s argument.

A pair of blue eyes checked on him every few moments, flitting back to the road immediately the second the Soldier looked up, but not fast enough. The Asset’s heart was pounding in his chest every time their gaze met.

“Do you want to listen?” Natasha asked, and the Soldier supposed he’d been watching her instead of Steve for a bit too long now – she wasn’t usually the type to bring up when he stared vacantly into the distance. He wondered if it was because she had experienced loss herself. Almost all of the heroes had.

He looked up, a lump forming in his throat. “Sure,” he mumbled slowly, though he didn’t really want to listen at all. Natasha took the earphone out of her left ear and passed it over to the Soldier. She only briefly flinched when the cold metal touched her skin. S _oldier-Bucky- **Soldier** -Bucky._

“What is this?” the Soldier asked after a few seconds, to break the silence of the car. Sam had resorted to ‘googling’ (whatever that was) the route, and Steve was alternating between the road and the Soldier with such persistence he was almost afraid the car would go off the road (but of course it was Steve driving, and he trusted nobody more than Steve – trusted nobody else other than Steve).

“Slipknot,” Natasha said with a light smile. “The only western music I’ve ever liked.”

“I prefer the Soviet version,” the Soldier said, and there was something like amusement twitching on the corners of his mouth as he remembered the walks back from missions when he would pass by loud, ruckus bars and hear grown men singing about their wives and girlfriends and how much they hated their bosses. Natasha – the only one out of all of them to share that memory – smiled with him.

“Me too,” she replied. She turned her phone over in her hand. “You know, it’s weird now.”

“What’s weird?” the Soldier asked, hoping she wouldn’t notice that he’d taken the music out of his ear and muffled it under the black of his hoodie. Natasha held up her phone.

“Five years ago,” she began. “We didn’t have the little ‘seen’ ticks.”

She motioned to the symbols. The Soldier watched her with careful curiosity. “And we didn’t have the ‘typing’ notification either.”

“Is that a problem?” Steve asked form the front seat, not really understanding. They were pulling off the freeway now onto a smaller road, so it was probably almost time to disembark for the night into a nearby motel. This time, it was Sam who laughed.

“It means that people can see when you’re ignoring them,” he explained.

“Or,” Natasha suggested, “when you’ve been staring at the phone for the past two hours because you can’t think of what to say.”

The Soldier pursed his lips together. “Has that ever happened to you, Natal- Natasha?”

_Natalia-Natasha-Black Widow-Moscow-training-Soldier-Bucky-James._

The corners of her mouth twitched upwards. “Perhaps,” she replied diplomatically. “I love you are the hardest words to hear, you know.”

*

The Soldier ended up rooming with Steve, because Steve was Bucky’s best friend.

He didn’t want to room with Steve. Steve wasn’t the Soldier’s best friend.

_Mission-friend-mission-friend-Steve-mission-friend._

But he knows Steve wants him to room with him – knows Steve wants to be with him all the time, now, and he sort of likes that fact for a reason he can’t quite grasp.

The Soldier-Bucky-Soldier-Bucky feels like a piece of shrapnel pierced his heart when Steve turned over late in the night, eyes painfully wet and torso achingly strong, and whispered, “Do you hate me? For not – for not catching you?”

They didn’t used to sleep in twin beds, Steve and Bucky. They used to sleep on a mattress on the floor of their apartment, back in 1939 – they were sleeping when the war started.

“No, Steve,” the Soldier responded immediately.

He didn’t say _I could never hate you, not even when the world was ending._

He didn’t say _the day I hate you will be the day there’s nothing good left on the earth to love._

What he does say is, “I mean, it was pretty shit, not gonna lie. But now I have a metal arm – which is pretty interesting, Stevie – and I was an assassin, so.”

“You were an assassin,” Steve said, not laughing like others would when Bucky- ** _Soldier_** -Bucky got all smartass. He never used to, either. “I made you that. I got you captured. Why _don’t_ you hate me?”

The Soldier- **Bucky** swallowed thickly. “I don’t know,” he responded. “Just don’t.”

_Because you’re Steve._

_Because you used to sit on your knees on the church pews ‘cause you were too small to see over Grady Macey._

_Because you smile with your entire face, and when you do the world lights up._

_Because you’re still here with bruises on your neck. You’re still trying to make me into something._

_Because when they were trying to break me, your death was the only thing that could._

“How did you die, Steve?” the Soldier asked, twisting the old woollen blanket they’d brought with them in a rush around his human fingers, enjoying the feel against his skin. He wasn’t used to delicacy, not anymore – it felt better when he was hurting. Steve shuffled in the bed, and the covers shifted slightly, exposing one broad shoulder to the moonlight streaming in through the window.

The Soldier felt like he was dying, now.

“How did I die,” Steve repeated, furrowing his eyebrows together like he was trying to solve a puzzle.

The Soldier hated when he did that, hated when he looked troubled for any reason at all.

“Yeah,” he said. He still felt sick, but maybe less so than he had back in Washington. Maybe it was getting better the further they drove. “You died, didn’t ya? How?”

Steve hesitated for a second before answering. “I crashed a ship into the Arctic,” he explained. “It was one of HYDRA’s, obviously, and I think I killed the Red Skull – hope I … I hope I killed the Red Skull – anyway,” he shook his head. The Soldier wanted him to stop. It looked like it would hurt.

“The ship had these – it had these missiles underneath it, for every main city in the world. And it was going so fast, I couldn’t think of a way to stop it – it was headed straight for New York, people were going to die – I crashed it into the ice. Only way I could think … only thing I could do.”

The Soldier nodded. It had suddenly gotten colder. He wondered if Steve noticed; if Steve was ever as cold as he had been before. He wondered if he should tell Steve all he was remembering. He wondered if it would hurt to do so.

“Why are you asking?” Steve questioned, softly though, like he wasn’t expecting the Soldier to answer.

“Just interested,” the Soldier said.

He didn’t tell Steve that they’d told him the Winter Soldier shot Rogers, right in between the eyes during a mission.

He didn’t tell Steve he thought for years his childhood best friend was just another on a long list of hit targets.

He didn’t tell Steve the second they told the Soldier he’d spilled Steve’s blood and not even _remembered_ it, never even thought before doing it, Bucky Barnes died.

Steve didn’t look like he believed him, but he left it. Just like he always had.

*

Steve was out of his mind with fever, and that explained a lot of things that happened over the course of the weekend; Steve thinking the kitchen units were talking to him, screaming at his slippers to get out of the way, crying when his mother tried to feed him soup because in his mind it looked like something else. Bucky had learnt over the course of his lifetime not to pay attention to anything Steve said when he was sick, because people who were dying couldn’t be trusted to do things they meant.

Steve was always dying, it seemed. Bucky was always worrying, worrying so much it burnt through him - turned into water so he was in the middle of the ocean with nowhere to go but right back home to Steve.

Sarah Rogers was still alive at that time, which was perfect for Bucky because she was a nurse and knew a hell of a lot of things he didn’t about how to take care of Steve – she knew what to mumble to him to get him to fall asleep quicker, knew what food he ate when he puked up everything else, didn’t have to look away when blood came up. She wasn’t fazed by anything, that woman, and Bucky admired her more than perhaps anyone.

The Soldier missed her.

She was out buying the meagre groceries she could afford with her pay-check and she’d put Bucky in charge of Steve, who was lulling in and out of sleep and cowering from imaginary punches all the rest of the time (Steve was at that age where the fights had only begun a couple months ago, and Bucky really wanted to punch him for not just walking away).

Bucky was sitting on the sofa in between Steve’s legs, flicking through a newspaper outlining the latest baseball game and technological advancement. Everything was happening so quickly now, Bucky thought, that in ninety years time there’d probably be people marrying their computers.

Every time Steve let out a cough in his sleep, or his chest gave a lurch, Bucky inhaled sharply. He was pretty sure if Mrs. Rogers didn’t come back soon, he was going to die of oxygen deprivation.

There was a light breeze blowing in through the window, knocking the dust out of the old cushions, and Bucky was almost about to scream at nature for having the _audacity_ to create this kind of environment for an asthmatic teenage boy when Steve opened his eyes.

And God, they were bright red and then blue, so blue it was like the fucking sea. All red and white and blue, every part of him, covered in bruises from the older boys or where he banged into doors or where his skin conditions acted up. Bucky never wanted anyone to hurt Steve ever again, because this boy was his best friend, they’d been more than brothers since birth –

“Bucky,” Steve murmured, pushing himself up on his elbows. Bucky dropped the newspaper down onto the ground, not caring when it fell apart, and tried to push Steve back down.

“God’s sake, Stevie,” he fussed, fixing the woollen blanket over his friend’s skinny torso, ignoring how Steve fought against him. “You’re sick, you need to get better...”

“Bucky,” Steve repeated once more. There was determination on his face and a frown upon his lips and Bucky knew he wasn’t going to win, knew he was never going to win with Steve. “Bucky.”

“Ssh,” Bucky whispered, patting Steve’s sweaty hand which was now grasping onto his own so tight his knuckles were turning purple. “It’s okay Stevie. You’re okay.”

“Bucky,” Steve said with more insistence, and then he was lifting his head up off the cushion and his lips were on Bucky’s and he was kissing him.

His best friend – his Stevie – his childhood best friend – was kissing him, square on the mouth, lips red and hot and tasting fucking amazing, a bit more chapped than the dames were but _still._

And Bucky was _liking_ it, liking the fact that his hyped up on medicine best friend was kissing him and probably wasn’t even aware of what he was doing, and he didn’t even have time to think about how wrong that was before Steve was leaning back on the cushion again, biting down on his lip as if he could still taste Bucky on it.

He actually had it in his right mind to kiss Steve again, just because he wasn’t going to remember this anyways and maybe Bucky had been imagining this subconsciously for a hell of a long time, but then Mrs. Rogers appeared once more around the door, keys jingling off her fingers, calling out a chipper, “I’m back, boys!”

Steve fell back against the sofa, closing his eyes like the little shit he was, and Mrs. Rogers just saw Bucky sitting over his best friend, grey-faced and bright red lips, eyes wide and shocked.

“Are you okay, darling?” she asked, a caring smile on the features that were so Steve it hurt, and Bucky nodded, a lump forming in his throat like how he’d felt with Rebecca Trenowyth back when he was fourteen...

“I just need to go for a walk,” Bucky said abruptly, stepping up off the sofa, briefly tangled in Steve’s legs which wasn’t. Helping. “I just- I just need to get some air...”

“Okay,” Mrs. Rogers conceded, still watching him carefully with concern in her eyes. “You don’t need to stay with him all the time, James, you know that.”

“I know that,” Bucky replied. “I want to.”

It was the easiest truth he ever told, and it made it all the much harder for him to flirt with those girls at the bar, the girls with the too red lips and the too nice hair, the girls who were smoking cigarettes on the end of a long stick, the girls who were nothing like Steve.

It became something like a tradition for Bucky then. Each and every time he felt himself wanting to kiss Steve _just once just to see what it feels like_ he’d go out and kiss a girl until he gave up breathing, neck her in the back of her parents’ car, then go home to Steve with chicken soup and medicine he couldn’t afford and bruises on his jaw and lipstick on his chest.

He asked him when he came back whether Steve remembered anything that happened once the fever broke, and Steve explained that he once cried over missing his father to his mother for two hours, which was stupid, because “I can’t even remember anything but the man’s name, for God’s sake”.

Bucky knew it was a big deal, and it was just another of Steve’s secrets he’d store up and treasure for each day of his life because they were _best friends_ but he couldn’t bring himself to comfort Steve. He couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Anything else?” and then wincing when Steve raised an eyebrow, an expression of panic and offense splayed out over his features. Bucky dropped his gaze down to his lap.

“No,” Steve said slowly.

Bucky pretended not to notice that Steve was lying, but it was hard with Steve’s fingerprints ghosting the skin of his arm.

*

It was midnight on the seventh day of the trip, and Natasha and Bucky/the Soldier were lying on top of the car, staring up at the endless night above them, the twinkling stars that were permanent – had been there before HYDRA, and would be there long after.

Sam and Steve below them, passed out over the back and front seats, resting up for the next day when they would be designated drivers. They were doing the brunt of the driving, now, because every time the Soldier was put in control of a situation he broke down a little inside, and Natasha was the one who brought him back to the surface when he couldn’t stick to ‘pollute’ Steve, so he appreciated her for that.

“We’ve met before, Soldier,” Natasha murmured. Her voice was slightly strained from lying down, and the Soldier’s back was aching from the bump of the roof they were resting upon. His knuckles were hurting too, but he was happy for that – contented that he had started punching walls instead of strangling Steve (although when he watched Steve promising to pay the hotels twice the amount of damage, he felt inside of him collapse. He couldn’t do anything that didn’t hurt Steve).

“I know,” the Soldier sighed, because he knew her touch was too familiar – knew she was too good at calming him down for them to be strangers before. “Did we – you know –”

“Have sex?” Natasha suggested. The Solider cleared his throat, not familiar with the ease at which she said that. Back when he was Bucky – because yes, Bucky felt just a little bit closer now – everything was discreet; sex wasn’t a word that came into his vocabulary. He was well versed on dirty talking without actually saying anything. “No,” she replied hesitantly.

Bucky raised his eyebrow. “Well, I mean,” this was the first time he had seen Natasha even slightly flustered, though she was still breathing easy, the opposite of what was true for him. “We came pretty damn close, sure, but for some reason one of us wanted to remain clothed.”

She paused, turning her head to smile widely at him. “The one of us with a metal arm, by the way.”

Bucky hit her playfully on the arm, and she let out a laugh.

“I thought maybe you were a virgin-”

“I’m not,” Bucky broke in. “Steve told me and – I remember some of it. But –”

“You weren’t ready for intimacy,” Natasha said, and she was sitting up now so she could shrug her shoulders. “I get that. Broken people understand other broken people. You and me, Soldier-”

He stopped himself from correcting her.

“We’re the same.”

“Yeah,” Bucky muttered. “And that’s exactly why we can’t be together, isn’t it, Natalia?”

Natasha’s eyes widened only a fraction. “Thought you didn’t remember that,” she murmured lowly.

“I remember a lot more than you think,” the man said sadly.

*

He had to meet with her – Natalia Romanova, of the KGB, or wherever she rested her loyalties this month. HYDRA needed her intelligence, and the only person who could rival her ... talents was the Asset, so of course, he had no decision but to oblige.

The past twenty years had been a blur of _target found target down target found target chased target down agent disposed of target found target down target bleeding_ and this was the first time the Soldier could remember wearing a suit – it felt weird being confined without shoots of excruciating pain running through his veins.

He clenched his fists which were hidden in gloves. Couldn’t have anyone seeing it and ringing the alarm, now could we?

She entered the room as discreetly as a woman of her beauty could. A slinky black dress decorated her body, clinging to each and every curve, making the Soldier think that maybe she might be the type of woman to make him less of a machine – make him more of a man.

His heart was pounding in his chest, and he could recall faintly this happening before – but it was highlighted by tones of sepia, fuzziness blurring the memories so he wasn’t sure they weren’t dreams.

“Natalia Romanova,” she said once she reached the bar he was standing at. He offered her the cocktail, a stamp of the KGB on the side of the glass, and she nodded abruptly, pursing her lips together. She had already known – but of course it was best in this business to be sure.

“Winter Soldier,” he introduced himself. She considered him for a moment.

“That’s a code name,” she replied. “Are we not close enough friends for that to be disregarded?”

“We’ve only just met,” the Soldier replied stiffly, shuffling slightly on his feet. She was looking at him with a sparkle in her eyes, and he didn’t quite understand it. “Besides – don’t our codenames define us?”

“Perhaps,” she responded diplomatically, like she was testing out the word upon her tongue. She took a sip of the cocktail and then set it down on the bar, running her hand along the rim of the glass.

Something broke inside the Soldier.

“James,” the Soldier spat out, causing Natalia to look up from her drink with slight surprise at his outburst. “You can call me – James. If you want.”

Natalia smirked, her painted lips twisting so perfectly it made the Soldier want to kiss her. “Well, James,” she said, flicking a lock of red hair behind her shoulder. “You should keep your eye on the mission instead of me.”

“Sorry Natalia,” he responded, but this time he was smirking. He didn’t think he had it in him to smirk anymore. “It’s just with such a fine dame as yourself, I can’t imagine myself doin’ anything else but dancin’.”

“So suddenly charming,” she teased. “Like a 1940’s gentleman. Were you raised a gentleman, James?”

“Might’ve been,” the Soldier replied. “Can’t really remember.”

“Oh yes,” she said. She looked sad now. It settled more easily on her features than a smile. “I forgot about that.”

The Soldier cocked a head and furrowed his eyebrows together. “What?”

She never answered his question, just passed over the intelligence. From what Bucky could remember in 2014, they hadn’t said goodbye that night either – they’d spent the weekend together in Moscow.

He thought he recalled something about a snowball fight and thick, soothing vodka blurring his judgement together, but he couldn’t be sure.

*

A couple years later, she was standing in front of a target and he’d been wiped since then – they thought he was getting a bit too close to a certain Soviet spy and HYDRA couldn’t have their Asset being such thing as a _human_ so they stripped her from him, made him forget everything but the red of her hair blowing in the breeze and the faint rose perfume dancing through the air towards him at a dusty bar.

She was trying to protect the scientist. That much was clear. But _targetNataliatargetdon’tknowhertargetNatalia_ was running marathons through the Soldier’s brain and he knew how strong she was, how painfully resilient, knew those were the same two traits that made him fall in love once before – a love that had never ended for him, even if he couldn’t remember –

He didn’t say _please please please don’t make me do this Natalia please please please get out of the way._

Instead he said, “Move outta the way, sweetheart,” as Bucky’s hand shook microscopically on the trigger. “You’re not the target. Too pretty to die for this.”

The red haired agent let out a laugh as bitter as Moscow vodka, and Bucky disappeared once more.

“Over my dead body,” she hissed, such hatred in her words that it made it very easy for the Soldier to reply.

“As you wish, darling.”

She dropped to the ground, as did the man behind her. The Winter Soldier walked past, sneering at the blood stained red hair against the black of the Moscow road, and disappeared into the night, Bucky screaming desperately inside his head.

*

“I have a tendency to trust previous Russian assassins,” Steve said with a grin in Arizona, on the first day of 2015. Natasha and Sam were lying on the grass somewhere, moaning about the alcohol fogging their vision and clouding their senses, but the Soldier – more Bucky than Soldier – was only drunk on Steve.

“Nah,” Bucky responded, smiling just as brightly back. “It’s a hero complex, bud. I’d get that checked out.”

When he fell from the train, a Soviet spy named Natalia was perhaps the only one who could get through the Winter Soldier.

When he fell from the heli-carrier, an American golden-boy he’d loved for longer than he’d been alive was perhaps the only one who could bring back Bucky Barnes, and he fell deeper

Deeper

_Deeper_

With each passing day.

*

It was the end of January, and they had been travelling for a long time now, and everybody was more tired than anything but Steve kept saying that they need to keep going, need to keep searching for his old friend amongst the dustiness of the states and the endlessness of the American highways.

He knew Sam was going to miss the induction period for his latest class. He knew that Natalia-Natasha-Natalia was trying to reinvent herself at the same time, and it’s harder to do that when she’s basically a nomad. And he really wanted to tell Steve that it’s been almost two months, and whilst he was getting better, maybe it’s time to give it a break. But Steve was nothing if not determined.

It’s 2.03am when they have their first argument since 1943, and it’s over the fact that Steve is chasing someone who died _years a_ go, and it’s really mean of you Steve because I’m trying my best and well goddamnit Soldier I didn’t realise you had feelings (okay so maybe he didn’t say it exactly like that, but the Soldier had known this boy since he could walk and it was what he’d been inferring).

Steve let out an exasperated sigh. “Bucky...” he drawled out.

The Soldier nearly lost it, and it took all the will power in him to not push Steve up against a wall ~~(and kiss him, kiss him kiss him kiss him).~~

“Don’t call me that!” he screamed, and if he didn’t feel the friction in his vocal chords he might not have believed that dying animal sound was coming from him, and Steve was sighing, but he was patient.

Steve was always patient. Like fifteen saints. It was infuriating.

“What do you want to be called, then?” Steve asked kindly.

Steve was always kind. Like fifteen Captain Americas. It was heartbreaking.

He pursed his lips, but didn’t answer. Steve considered him for a while longer before giving up and retreating to the hotel gym.

He knew Steve wasn’t sleeping when he rolled over onto his side that night and whispered, “Yours” into the cover of the darkness.

He knew he wasn’t imagining it when Steve’s lips spelled out a promise; “Okay.”

*

“Tell me about it,” Bucky said, whilst he sat in the front seat of the car beside a smiling Steve, flicking through the blond man’s notepad of things to catch up on. Sam leaned over the seat and peered at what he was referring to, and a stony expression crossed her face, which Natasha reciprocated.

“My mum had a friend,” Sam began over the low hum of the radio and the clunk-clunk-clunk of the engine. “Her name was Amelia, and she was a nurse from Germany. Moved to the States when she was eight years old because her dad was a bank manager, and there’s plenty more banks in America that needed his expertise. Anyways –

“She got a lot of comments, obviously – about Nazis and Hitler and people blaming her for the death of their grandfathers and fathers and friends, because it was all so close to memory, you know? Too soon for comfort, and everybody was scared that humanity could get that way. But Amelia didn’t care, because it was her and her dad here, the one man she’d always been able to rely on, and he was so happy with his work – so fulfilled that she couldn’t tell him about her being bullied.

“Then it happened.”

Steve let out a deep shuddering breath, like how he used to when he had pneumonia and Bucky could see that beautiful light extinguishing inside of him. “The planes,” he said. Sam nodded.

“Her dad died – in blood – and fire – and anguish. In the pictures you could see – you could see him falling – maybe it was just a trick of the light but ... You could see he had Amelia’s eyes, and the watch she’d bought him for his birthday on his wrist – and – and he’d just gotten off the phone with her, told her everything would be fine –

“Nothing would be fine after that. How much sense does it make, really, to fly a plane into a building?”

Natasha broke in then. “My ledger is flaming red, and I know that – know I’m nowhere near righteous enough to be saying anything about these people, but it was such an attack, and on America too – the strongest country in the world, crippled by a couple of planes...”

Bucky could see something fierce cross her face, settle into her set jaw, lace itself through her words.

“And now, what does your precious country decide to do? Some higher up in a fancy industry sat down in front of his colleagues a couple years ago and said ‘hey, I know what would make us even more like assholes and fatten up our wallets a bit’. They’ve built a tower, Steve, as if it won’t make whoever walks past it sick to their fucking stomachs – imagine, imagine – rebuilding something that was crushed to the ground, throttled, that buried so many people – why would you? Why would you? Is it a pride thing, you Americans have? Or it is just plain stupidity?”

She let out a breath she’d been holding for a while, and Bucky followed her movements.

“It only takes a couple of towers to remind me of how much I miss goddamn Russia.”

“Same,” Bucky piped up, and he must’ve got his comic timing back because the entire tense car burst into laughter.

*

Everything big in Bucky’s life had happened at night, he was convinced of it. Probably because he turned into the sissiest soldier in the world the second the sun went down and Steve got all giddy-tired.

Bucky always felt weird and uncomfortable when he let things out about himself, which was probably half of the reason Steve knew at the most five secrets about him and he knew everything there was to know about Steve – he’d always been a private person, always been ready to do the dirty work on Steve’s behalf.

Maybe he was made to be the villain. Maybe the way Nick Fury saw him wasn’t that far off after all.

They were in a cheap motel that didn’t even have goddamn beds in the room, and Steve had insisted on sleeping on the floor whilst Bucky slept on the sofa, because “you did it enough for me when we were kids” (Bucky refrained himself from saying “Yeah, but I didn’t love you when we were kids, did I?” because that statement in itself wasn’t true).

“Steve” cut through the stillness of the night, the light stretches of streetlamps that danced across the rough dirty carpet. Steve woke up immediately – he’d been awake for a while now, but Bucky didn’t want to say anything about it, didn’t want to say that he knew Steve hadn’t been sleeping for months now, relying only on the serum to keep him going.

“Yeah, Buck?” Steve replied, voice heavy with sleep and fuck, Bucky was so far gone, had been since the first time he saw him, the first time he knocked out a bigger boy just for daring to hurt his boy Steve.

“Why are you still here?”

The question hung between them, as evident as an elephant in the room, and Bucky regretted asking it.

“I mean – why didn’t you give up on me? I was the Winter Soldier – I wouldn’t blame you if you left me in Moscow to rot.”

“I got in over my head,” Steve said, shrugging lightly as he pushed himself up off the floor. It was just like how they lived together, a hundred odd years ago – Bucky craved that life back so desperately it crashed right through him. “You waded in and pulled me out, just like you always do. Even when I had nothing – I had you.”

At that, Bucky gives up trying to be a man, and just comes out with it. “Can I show you something? And it wouldn’t be – strange?”

Steve nodded hurriedly, so fast he looked like a bobble head, and Bucky would’ve laughed if it wasn’t for the reverence Captain America was considering him with.

Slowly, he sat up on the sofa and reached behind his neck to grab onto the thin fabric of the white t-shirt, pulling it up over his head. It briefly caught on his nose but then fell to the side, and Steve was looking at his questioningly, fingertips shaking minutely, making their way over to the small lamp beside Bucky which he flickered on.

“I’ve got scars,” Bucky murmured, as if Steve hadn’t noticed already – it was pretty hard not to notice the junction between the bionic arm and Bucky’s raw, human skin. They were jagged and they were ripped and they were hideous, and Bucky immediately regretted showing Steve, because Steve shouldn’t see ugly things like that, but then Steve was reaching over Bucky to the bedroom cabinet and taking something out –

A notepad and a pencil were in between Steve’s dextrous fingers, and he glanced upwards as if to ask permission. Bucky nodded, and mumbled, “Sure” in a thick voice that wasn’t his own – it was someone else’s, someone who flirted with girls at bars and brought them home the same night –

“You know you worked months to get the money to send me to art school for a year,” Steve said with a light laugh. His arm was wrapped around the notepad, so Bucky couldn’t see what he was drawing so intently with a little wrinkle on his forehead. “I’ve been taking classes for a while in the future, too.”

“You were good,” Bucky replied. He wondered if Steve ever knew how much he busted his ass at the docks – taking over other peoples’ workloads, trying to get the littlest stretch of a raise – just to see the smile on his best friend’s face. Steve chuckled lowly.

“The only thing I _was_ good at, back then,” he said.

“You were always modest, Stevie,” Bucky replied. “One of your most annoying traits, punk.”

Steve grinned, and returned his attentions to the painting. “Stay still,” he ordered, whilst Bucky shuffled on the sofa. He immediately stopped. “I missed you, you know. _More_ than you know.”

“Don’t be getting all soppy on me.”

“I’m not the one who’s half naked, half sentimental right now.”

Bucky laughed, and he wanted to reach out and grab the notepad to see what Steve was doing but he’d been instructed to stay put. He’d been a model before for Steve, when they were bored on winter’s nights with nothing but a pencil and bad weather that would kill Steve if it got the chance, so he was well versed on doing nothing but watching him for ten – twenty – thirty minutes. Whatever.

“Done,” Steve mumbled lowly, moving his arm to show Bucky.

The way Steve had drawn him – it didn’t look like how he saw himself. The scars that he’d hated so dearly were thunderbolts across his skin, mere cracks in the porcelain, and the arm shone against it. His hair was long and almost completely over his face, but what you could see of his eyes was sparkling; of course, he had been looking at Steve the entire time, so that was expected.

He didn’t look like the Soldier – the agent turned assassin turned nothing in particular. He didn’t look like Bucky – childhood best friend, most popular guy in school, boyfriend. He just looked like James Buchanan Barnes, a guy who grew up in Brooklyn and spent most of his adult life in Russia. And that was _okay_.

“Do you like it?” Steve asked. He’d came closer now, and they were only a few inches apart on the sofa – it reminded him of the best day – the day that everything changed –

“Love it,” Bucky said, but he wasn’t looking at the picture anymore.

Steve swallowed thickly.

“Bucky –” he began.

“Steve –”

There was a brief pause, and then – “I remember that day.”

“What day?”

“Don’t play stupid, Buck,” Steve rolled his eyes. “You know what day!”

“Oh,” Bucky murmured lowly. “That day.”

“The day I was sick –”

“Out of your mind with fever –”

“I wasn’t _that_ out of it. I knew what I was doing.”

“Did you? Is that why you cried about the beauty of your mother’s hair?”

A light blush appeared on Steve’s face. Bucky smirked.

“I mean – I don’t regret what I did. You know.”

“What did you do?”

“ _Bucky_.”

Bucky grinned. “What’s so wrong with saying it, Stevie?”

“I just – I don’t know if we’re talking about the same thing.”

“How about we both say what we’re thinking about at the same time?”

Steve pursed his lips. “I’ve known you your whole life,” he said. “I’m not going to fall for that.”

“Come on,” Bucky said, pulling lightly on Steve’s sleeve. “I’m different now.”

“I know,” Steve sighed. “Okay. On three?”

“One,” Bucky counted.

“Two.”

“Three.”

“I kissed you.”

“You kissed me.”

And then they were doing it again, and it didn’t make any sense and Steve didn’t flinch with the cold of the metal against his neck.

Slow and deep and God, Steve had been practicing, hadn’t he, and Bucky was out of practice – but Steve was _loving_ it, he could tell from how both their bodies moved closer, as if they couldn’t bear to be far away anymore –

They were always going to be together, and that was what played over and over in Bucky’s mind.

Ninety years ago, it had been ‘ _James Buchanan Barnes’_ and ‘ _Steve’_ and his number repeated and repeated and repeated until it was branded into the side of his skull. Now it was ‘ _James Buchanan Barnes’_ and ‘ _Steve’_ and ‘ _Together together together never gonna let go’_.

He wasn’t sure how long they lay there together, breathing the same air, but when he woke up in the morning Steve was wrapped around him tight, like how he used to when they were ten, and Bucky had missed him.

He was somewhat bigger now, though, but then, Bucky was different too.

Maybe that was okay. Maybe different didn’t mean bad. Maybe.

*

They were on their way back to New York – Bucky having told Steve that really, it was time for him to return to Brooklyn – when Natasha saw it for the first time.

Steve always reached out in his sleep, even before the Winter Soldier appeared. The first night Natasha had bunked with him, she’d been hit in the face herself with his arm as he flailed around in his sleep, desperately searching for something long forgotten and unknown to all of the Avengers but one – the one who’s father had told him of this man, the one who knew Steve better than all of them, knew the single thing that broke him apart amongst the darkness.

Natasha had imagined that it was a lover. It had to have been someone whose lips once graced Steve’s to turn this man – this war-machine, this commander and captain – into such a desperate, whimpering child. When she’d read his case file and learnt of Peggy Carter, Natasha thought she’d figured out yet another unsolvable puzzle to add to her long list but then, upon seeing his reaction to the Soldier – seeing him standing there, awestruck, willing to let himself be killed within a moment because his defences dropped down so rapidly – - Natasha knew the Soldier meant a hell of a lot more to him than a best friend.

Sam was driving, and Bucky and Steve were cramped up together in the back seat catching up on some sleep even though the group had dispersed to their rooms relatively early the past night.

Natasha could see them in the mirror, could see Steve reaching out his hand, a small whimper catching in the back of his throat. Her’s was thick now, trying to hold back tears with the desperation in which he acted, and then it happened.

Bucky – still closed eyes, still breathing shallowly with sleep – extended a metal arm and clasped Steve’s warm hand in his.

A soft smile appeared on Steve’s face, and Natasha mirrored his expression.

*

The bar in Brooklyn was how Bucky used to like them – old fashioned, playing no music but that which was played on an old, jaunty piano by a balding man, dames with big skirts and cigarettes hanging out their mouths smirking and playing hard to get. Steve, however, hadn’t been used to partying in 1943, and he definitely wasn’t used to walking into a room with a metal-armed, grumpy previous assassin on one arm and a gorgeous, vintage dressed Natasha Romanoff on the other. Sam had come along too, but at least he was familiar with such social constructs as ‘having a good time without killing someone or yourself’.

Bucky was pulling on the collar of the white shirt, feeling slightly stifled and not at all comfortable, but Steve was sort of grinning hesitantly as Natasha pulled him onto the dance floor, laughing and declaring, “Come dance with me, you fossil!” Sam was smiling along with Steve, but the Falcon quickly caught the eye of an old school mate who he began doing shots with, stating that he would never give up to a guy who used to eat his own boogers.

It was stuffy but not as much as their apartment had been, ninety years ago, and back then Bucky had spent the majority of the time pressed up against a shivering Steve trying to heat him like a furnace, so he was used to the temperature. He caught the attention of a girl at the other end of the hall, who he promptly made his way over to, because it just seemed natural for him somehow – maybe he was slipping into some of his old patterns.

The girl was called Mary, and she was wearing scrubs and a tired but pleased expression on her sweet features. She explained to him that she was training to be a neonatal nurse at the moment and that was her first night off in about three months. When he said to her he was much the same, though he used to be a soldier then an assassin, she laughed, as if he’d said something delightful and witty, and it filled him up inside with a little bubble of happiness that he could make someone other than Steve laugh (though that would’ve been enough for him to live on by itself, honestly).

“What are you doing out here tonight then, Sergeant Barnes?” Mary asked, swirling the wine in the glass round so it was hypnotic; just blood gushing round an alcohol glass, and it made Bucky sick to look at. But Bucky was a fighter, so he forced a smile onto his face.

“Well, you tell me,” he responded, and Mary giggled once more. He motioned back to the piano behind them. “Do you actually know any of these songs?”

Mary listened for a few moments before shaking her head. “No,” she replied, and then, leaning in so close to Bucky he could smell the sickly sweet scent of her intoxicating perfume, “But between me and you, I don’t think the guy playing them does either.”

Bucky let out an abrupt laugh. “I used to be a pretty good piano player, back in the day.”

“Back in the day?” Mary questioned, her eyes flashing with amusement. “What age are you, twenty five?”

“I’ve been around the block a few times, darling,” Bucky teased. “Come on, I’ll show you how to bang.”

She choked on her alcohol at that, making Bucky think that this was yet another modern innuendo he hadn’t picked up on yet, but took his hand when he offered it to her and followed him to the piano.

“Here, bud,” he said to the old man, who stopped quite suddenly. A few of the dancers turned around to scrutinise him, though it being silent wasn’t much better than his playing had been. “Mind if I take a gander at it?”

“You good, boy?” the man asked, and Bucky shrugged his shoulders whilst Mary nodded enthusiastically. “Fair enough,” he conceded, stepping up.

Bucky didn’t bother to sit down. He stood up, biting down on his lip, slightly hunkered over the piano. The ivory keys stretched out in front of him, blindingly familiar yet tantalisingly out of reach, and he placed his nimble fingers – and the metal ones, also – against them.

He took a deep breath, and began to play.

A few metres away Steve had stopped dancing with Natasha and was staring, slack jawed and eyes sparkling, at Bucky as if he’d just won a Nobel Prize, or like how he had when Bucky first beat up those boys for picking on him so long ago – a lifetime ago, perhaps several soldiers’. Bucky’s fingers were moving of their own accord, knowing more than his mind did, and it played a toe-tapping tune that people immediately began dancing around to, laughing and smiling and linking arms.

It was just like how it had been, and the only thing missing was his little sister Rebecca dancing around on his toes and his brother Danny tapping the box drum alongside his playing, the sound of his parents’ arguments hanging in the air. He used to play a lot on their old beat up instruments, because it was the only thing that could mute the crying of the children, could get his younger siblings to get up and dance instead of falling apart.

Bucky remembered jaunty rhythms, threatening to beat up any of the boys his sisters picked up if they so much as placed a finger out of line, Steve just watching him from the lines of laughing people instead of going off with a girl himself.

“I got this, man,” the old boy broke in slowly, grinning at Bucky as if he’d met his soulmate. Bucky saw something in his eyes – something that struck of home and friendliness and he thought he knew him, but that wouldn’t be possible. “You go dance with Stevie. Know you’ve been waiting to.”

And Bucky was about to protest, because that kind of talk would’ve got him thrown into the docks back home, but when Steve stepped into the centre of the room and brought Bucky back to Natasha and Sam with him, he remembered that this was a different time.

They could do this now, he told himself, placing a hand on Steve’s waist and revelling in the wide eyes he received as a response. Natasha and Sam were grinning knowingly behind them, and upon the beginning of the next song they were whisked away into the night as well.

Suddenly, with Steve looking – down - at him the grungy bar became a buzzing spot with little lights dancing around the corners of his vision and everything bathed in a pale golden glow.

He was stilted and stiff in his movements at first, but then the beat from the rapidly improved player started running through his veins and into his limbs, both those that had been there since the beginning and the one that hadn’t, and it felt like home. Everything about this, felt like home.

“You haven’t lost it, Buck,” Steve laughed whilst they danced around each other, and Bucky was _grinning,_ for the first time in forever. His cheeks weren’t used to the stretching, and it sort of hurt to do it, but the pain was worth it for the first time; the pain felt like happiness.

Steve’s lips were on his, and they tasted of a smile as well. They tasted like glee and pure and utter excitement, excitement he hadn’t felt since that day with the fever when he walked home with an awestruck expression on his face that his brothers made fun of for hours afterwards.

That night when he returned home, he looked himself straight on in the mirror against the backdrop of several portraits Steve had drawn of him, and they were exactly the same.

He no longer had smudged eyes, as dark as the pits of his soul. He no longer had red hands, stained bloody from the guts he had spilled over fresh white snow in Moscow. His lips no longer dripped Russian, French, or Spanish with the fluency they once had, and they didn’t curse like how he used to back on the streets of Brooklyn, either.

James Barnes was a fighter, and he’d fought through everything, remembered nothing but his name and his Steve and his number and his status, and he’d found his way back; he’d battered his way through years of conditioning and murder and cold, hapless abuse that did nothing but tear holes in his self worth, in everything that had ever mattered.

He’d been told the only one he’d ever loved, the only kiss that had ever mattered, was gone because of him, and he’d gone on to save that boy from the perils of the ocean, pulled him back to shore _just like he’d always done._

Bucky pursed his lips together and raised the scissors up into the sight of the mirror. With a click of the metal, a chunk of his long, mangled hair fell down into the sink. Frantically, like it was a drug he couldn’t get enough of, he snipped more and more and more, until the white was barely visible amongst the brown.

Next was shaving, and he moved more delicately across his skin than he had ever been before, careful not to leave even a trace of blood on his face because if Steve loved it gently, like it could be broken so easily, why couldn’t he.

He looked at himself in the mirror, really looked at himself, and considered the way in which his eyes weren’t dark blue anymore, navy against his black hoodie.

They were a bright, soul inspiring cyan instead, and they were to spend the rest of their days gazing upon his boyfriend, loving him, loving himself.

The Soldier. James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky. Whatever he might be and whoever he might be that for, it was all okay, because he wasn’t just one person anymore – nobody was.

A slight smirk appeared on his features, tasting of lip balm and gunpowder, all at the same time.

**Author's Note:**

> A little oneshot based in the MCU-verse, pre Civil War! This one's been waiting in my drafts for ages and I finally got it finished up tonight for you wonderful people. Hope you enjoy!


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